tradwives v. climbing trees (day 3)

The fields are golden in the autumn. The sun shines so brightly this morning, it hurts his eyes to look towards their little house in the east.

He has to squint, standing there, waist-high in the grass that prickles his arms as he walks. Can't remember what it is he's looking at now.

All memory before a certain age feels dappled in light. Was it good then, when he was too young to remember? The warm-hued years before his mother died. Before his brother died. Drowsy-soft. Unspool his brain like knitted yarn. Why can't he remember.

The hay eases beneath him. The light glows.

The fields are dying in the autumn, sun shining like a glint of metal off a spade. He can taste rust in his cheeks.

It hurts his eyes to look towards their little house in the east, so he turns towards the west instead, where the line of trees tremble like a lung. Closer and closer. Alone in the dawn. He walks through the grasses.

It takes so much to breathe that first breath. The belly is the warmest place to die.

There's a splat of wet membrane in the dirt, a piece of meat in the outline of a four-legged thing. The blue veins spider through the graying pink of its body. Shape of an eye. Tongue.

Bury it good, or the coyotes will dig it out. Six feet deep so the scent doesn't carry. Bury it good, or it’ll be unearthed again. Scattered pieces, bone softer than a piece of rotting root, jellied texture of muscle from decay. Listen Lu, this is how you dig a grave. This is what happens when you don't do it good.

But that's not right.

This doesn't happen here, yet. He isn't old enough. The brightness is painful.

In the autumn, the fields are golden. He leaves the room he shares with his brother because outside the window, she is standing near the line of trees.

Lu wakes up underneath the cloak in the heavy humidity pressed up against his chest. Hand to the bulk of the bandages under his shirt, the wound is no longer bleeding, dried to the touch, strangely cold. He sucks in a breath, and the ache's dulled to a throb when his chest expands. Another breath before he lets his hand drop to his lap, peeling the cloak off him.

The dizziness passes after a moment of standing. He grips his chest again.

On the third day, Lucius still eyes the sword laid between them. He still reaches for the rough wood of the lance. There's the same thought that crosses his mind again. But in the morning, he doesn't do anything but kick Tick awake.

"The tower," he says, once Tick has his eyes open. "Get up. Lead."

He regrets it just an hour later.

The trunks get taller as they trek. Tick keeps scribbling in that book as the trees knot thicker together, the pools drying back into the soil. That's good, he's saying, because it has to be the right way. Away from all that water.

They're climbing up the branches, above the dense undergrowth, higher and higher because that's supposed to help them see the direction they're going in. He keeps on climbing until there's suddenly no more ground. Their steps creak with the wind swaying the canopies. It feels like walking on a sea.

If Tick falls off the branch because his head's buried in his book. Well. Lu won't look down.

The sky gets darker. The mist beads on his hair. There's thunder before they feel the rain filter down through the leaves. There's the rushing sound of a downpour before it makes it all the way to their level of branches. Sudden storm.

Then, another whip of lightning. Lu turns around just as the vine lashes across his arm.

Thrown into a den of snakes, the vines writhe up his arms.

The force very suddenly hurls Tick towards Lu until they're being pulled together, chest to chest, arms going numb from the tightness of the bind. They're swinging upside down in the open air by the ankles, one yank later.

A forest is a carnivore too. A forest settles down for a years-long meal, and given enough time, it'll eat the skeleton to nothing too.

Lu tries to twist his arm out, but the thorns hook into them, biting small incisions into his skin with every inch he manages. They get dragged up higher, the vines creep up their bodies higher, Tick keeps squirming as a coil wraps around his neck, squeezing.

The rain runs off them, another roar of thunder. The canopy bares its teeth.

There's barely enough room to breathe in. The blood's rushing to his head. All Tick's doing is kicking a bruise into his shin.

It might be easier if Tick passed out. Let the vine asphyxiate him, let him go limp and loose, and then maybe if Lu could break a few of his bones somehow, if his ribs snapped, chest crushed into the pulp of his lungs. And then maybe there would be enough room to slip out of the grip.

But he leans in, tilts towards the side of Tick's neck. Bites down on the vine.

It's still wriggling when he jerks his head back, snapping the length between his teeth. The end of it withers, the length of it brittling. A pool of blood in his mouth from the thorns.

Flat part of the sword touches their thighs, pressed up against them. There's not enough room to turn the blade unless they turn it into themselves too. There's not enough room, but Lu stares at Tick, gritting out, "Use your damn sword."

The tedious back and forth makes just enough room. When the vines snap enough to free his hand, Lu fists the sword by the blade, sawing through the vines trying to rewrap around their limbs again. Then, his full arm is sticking out of the coiling mass. Then, he's slicing Tick's upper half loose too. The metal edge cuts into the meat of his palm, but he doesn't let go of it until Tick's got his arm out, his hand closing around the hilt.

He forgets that they're floating in air. That the vines are the only thing that's keeping them up. He forgets until they've sliced through enough that the weight of their bodies is suddenly stretching the last few vines very taut.

One suddenly snaps, and he feels them jolt down a foot.

How far up are they.

He looks down into the mist of the darkness, the canopies fading emerald, indigo, pitch black in the storm. The burst of white lightning illuminates several feet down, but the branches get too thick to let the light in.

Lu forgets until the sword cuts through the tangle, something in the knots severing, something that withers away. Something that gives, and his stomach lurches with the sudden weightlessness of free falling.

It feels like slow motion, but it all happens very fast.

They fall. Lu reaches, arm hitting a branch, the crook of his elbow catching it. He hooks his arm around it, hanging there. And he grabs instinctually with his hand, fingers crushing into the soft fabric of Tick's cloak, yanking him from air.

The branch creaks. Soft splintering noise. 

It feels like he's going to shatter his bones with how hard he's gripping into the cloak, the cut from the sword's edge soaking the fabric.

“Climb up,” he's hissing. The splintering gets so much louder.

Tick has three seconds before Lu lets go of him.